Estate agents sold an average 25 properties each in the three months to July, putting house sales at levels not seen since before the global recession, data has shown.

But despite the high levels of activity, surveyors say the number of people hunting for a home fell for the first time in 18 months, the latest monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors revealed.

An overall balance of five per cent of surveyors reported demand for homes falling rather than increasing in July - this is the first net decline in buyers coming to the market since January 2013, before the launch of the Government's Help to Buy mortgage support scheme.

Rics: The chart on the left show that prices have remained level after a boom last year, while the one on the left shows new buyer enquiries dropping

Rics members also expect property values to increase at a faster rate outside London over the next year than within the capital, a similar stance to its report last month.

In London, where house price growth has been highest, enquiries are falling at their fastest rate since 2008, while sales are also in decline and price momentum is ‘fading rapidly’.

London surveyors have the lowest expectations in the UK for house price growth over the next 12 months, typically putting the percentage increase at 1.9 per cent.

Across the UK, prices are predicted to increase by 2.6 per cent over the next year. The highest price growth expectations were found in East Anglia, where surveyors expect an average annual increase of 4.3 per cent.

Rics said that, despite the number of new properties coming onto the market across the country showing an overall increase for two months in a row, the supply of homes to choose from remains tight, meaning that in general, momentum for price increases is likely to remain robust.

A report from Halifax last week found average UK house prices now equate to more than five times wages for the first time since summer 2008.

Added to this stretched affordability, there has been much recent talk of interest rates rising and the impact this will have on borrowers.

Rics' latest report adds to a series of studies which point towards a slowing in the pace of the housing market recovery. Last month, property analyst Hometrack said there has been ‘a rapid cool down in the London market’.

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at Rics, said: ‘The shift in the mood music amongst potential buyers in the London market has been particularly pronounced, but that’s in a sense consistent with the move to a more sustainable market in the capital.

‘Elsewhere in the country, the market in general is showing a greater degree of resilience, but that largely reflects the fact that in some areas the recovery has only recently taken hold and affordability is rather less stretched.

‘Significantly, members now expect price gains over the next year to be faster outside of the capital than in it.’

The survey from Rics comes as separate data from chartered surveyors e.surv show last month was the strongest for house purchase lending approvals for seven years.

Its statistics show 66,279 house purchases approvals in July, 7.5 per cent higher than the 61,651 in the same month of 2013. However, this remains some way below July 2007, which saw 112,291 approvals.

Richard Sexton, director of e.surv chartered surveyors, explains: 'After a period of adjustment, the mortgage market has navigated around the regulatory speed-bumps and the lending recovery is firmly back on course.

'Training staff, implementing the new rules and putting in place longer advisory processes caused a slight slowdown in lending in April and May. But lending levels have bounced back, and the bottleneck of approvals stuck in the system has cleared.

'Not only that, the prospect of an interest rate rise is creeping ever closer, and is encouraging more borrowers to lock into cheap fixed-rate deals while they can – which is also pumping up lending volume.'